Battle Subway

First of all, allow me to thank Destiny_Warrior for starting this thread! I'm going to take it with his agreement to expand the OP and include record streaks.

The Battle Subway, just like the Battle Tower of past games, have you play against trainers in progressively tougher matches during your streak. There are several battle methods (tubelines) you can go through:

Singles Subway is a perfect playground for Acrobat Archaeos. I used it quite a long time, because I had one on my ingame run and even without specialized EVs, it OHKOed a lot. It´s better as a lead, tough, because it really can´t switch in.

Other than that, Doryuuzu obviously destroys in and out of Sandstream(better with it tough). Shell Breakers work well(those who are resistant/neutral to Aqua Jet in particular), because they can OHKO lots of mons. Cloyster with Icicle Spear is on top, obviously. For playing it save, White Herb is actually a nice option there.

Basically every strategy that worked in Battle Tower until now, also works in the Subway. Just watch out for Dreamworld sets(Contrarian)

Moderator

@ D_W :I also saw some Subway discussions going on in the Platinum/HGSS Battle Frontier discussion thread, over in Stark. I suppose the time is ripe to have a seperate B/W records and discussion thread, maybe in Uncharted Territory?

@ D_W :I also saw some Subway discussions going on in the Platinum/HGSS Battle Frontier discussion thread, over in Stark. I suppose the time is ripe to have a seperate B/W records and discussion thread, maybe in Uncharted Territory?

Off topic, but is the Subway as haxy as ol' Platinum/HGSS Frontier?

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Do old ladys using a team of ono,Salamence, dragonite and tyranitar count as hax?

I do think it's still pretty haxy. Met a full sandstorm team in double battles. Opponent had ttar, gliscor, chomp and gastrodon. My team died because of a couple of flinches from rock slide, a crit hit, outrage chose other pokemon over chomp twice (not as haxy but still :/) and ice beam missed chomp.

Fist turn met Kangaskan. I didn't fake out fearing Kanga could have inner focus ability from dream world, so i went for close combat. He faked out.
Second turn : Ape close combats, but Kanga had chople berry, so survived with a bunch of PS, Ape fainted Kanga's next attack, Kanga fainted for recoil (i think it had life orb too).
So i switch in gengar, other side sends Raichu.
I clearly switch in Garchomp, no damage taken.
Second turn : I earthquake, but Raichu had focus sash, so it resisted and made a move (don't know what, can't read Japanese) that let Garchomp with roughly 40% PS.
Next turn EQ again, Raichu faints.

Last enemy pokemon is Crimgan. i thought no problem, so Outrage...but... Crimgan had quick claw, that activates, Dragon Claw, Garchomp faints...

final consideration : i'm really tired of the luck factor in this game..... i'd really like a game where there are no item such as quick claw, brightpowder, etc., as well as OHKO moves.... so that there's move space for tactic and knowledge, and your streak is not ended by 2 quickclaw in 3 turns...

I don't see this mentioned anywhere, unimportant as it is, but while farming for BP on a few of the subway lines I noticed some things:

-Regular Singles train only goes to the 21st battle with the singles Subway Master. The first 2 sets give 3 BP, Master only gives 10. Afterwards you are (more or less) forced to return to Raimon City and start over.
-In Super Singles I did not fight the Master at #21 at all. First 3 sets gave 5 6 and 7 BP. Probably fightable at #49 as usual but I haven't been able to make it this far.
-Only tried regular Doubles but I think it's the same as regular Singles: stops at #21. Probably 3 3 10 for BP again but I don't recall.
EDIT: Additionally, the easy Battle trains only use 5th Gen Pokes and usually NFEs at that. Obviously excepting the Masters. Super lines are the standard Battle Tower/Frontier stuff, everything barring event legends and &quot;Ubers.&quot;

Well, you'll want something which can take on Steel-types and Electric-types, probably. A good partner may be Excadrill, or maybe even Hippowdon (with Excadrill in the back). Then again, Archeops is a Pokémon which works well in its own right, so any of the so-called good stuffs, like Hydreigon or Thundurus, could work.

I REALLY don't understand why isn't Chandelure used a lot more. Even without a boosting item, it has enough raw power to ohko shit like there's no tomorrow. Besides, Flame Charge breaks an opposing poke's sash and allows me to outrun and go for a clean ohko. The only reason I'm using Flame Body and not Flash Fire is because this Chandy was born with awesome IVs (30/x/26/31/31/31), female, and Modest. So yeah, works for me. Besides, Flame Body can be useful every now and then, mind you. Definitely god-tier for the Subway.

Hydreigon's not meant to ohko stuff, but rather take on whatever Chandy fails to OHKO, and has
amazing synergy thanks to it's typing and ability. Anyway, with a Life Orb it has enough power to 2ko most stuff, provided they aren't hardcore special walls, and with its bulk, Hydreigon can afford to take a hit. Timid nature was chosen just because there's some jolly Haxorus and stuff that I just needed to outrun.

Conkeldurr works even better that it does in Competitive, trust me. I can set up against literally anything that doesnt carry super effective special attacks. This guy also survived a critical hit outrage, which is rather impressive.

In case you're wondering, this team was defeated by a spam of "Fully Paralyzed".

The Tower / Subway test skill to some degree, but largely they rely on your ability to manipulate the AI and your determination to keep trying over and over and not break your DS in the meanwhile. I want something more like PBR or Colosseum or even the Stadiums, where the opponents were genuinely challenging but it didn't take nearly as long, and if you lost to hax (Generally you lose because your team wasn't prepared in PBR, not as much because of hax) it doesn't take so long to climb back up to where you were.

The last 4 battles (Round 8) in PBR's Stargazer Colosseum are an ideal example. They were genuinely difficult; the opponents had good natures, good IVs, and an intelligent, well-thought strategy. But there were only 4 matches; if you lost, it was only a 15 minute loss, and it was never a waste, because you learned something. I learned very little from the Battle Tower time after time, only knowing because of the trainer catalogues that I WAS facing something with a Quick Claw, and I MIGHT lose suddenly. I still think my streaks were almost entirely luck, because I can't replicate the 100+ lines for the life of me.

Finding Synchronizers goes like this: bring a T-Wave user, go to the top of Celestial Tower, find an Elgyem, which is 50% here, the largest chance of finding a wild Pokémon that can potentially have Synchronize, use Thunder Wave, and if it activates Synchronize, catch it. After catching Elgyem, go downstairs and have the Nurse heal you so that when you T-wave another Elgyem, Synchronize works.

Finding Synchronizers goes like this: bring a T-Wave user, go to the top of Celestial Tower, find an Elgyem, which is 50% here, the largest chance of finding a wild Pokémon that can potentially have Synchronize, use Thunder Wave, and if it activates Synchronize, catch it.

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preferably Stunfisk with limber, so you can't be paralyzed in return =)

This link has English Pokemon data and shows exactly what set you're fighting based upon the Trainer, so it should probably be used over the existing link (or in tandem - it doesn't contain Nature or EV data).